I had often wonder, why Irv Athearn never got around to offering this kit in plastic.
If memory serves the Athearn metal kit was a 50' flat with bulkheads.
Athearn did offer a pulpwood flat car in plastic, and as I recall in both 40' and 50'. I may have one of each somewhere on some shelf here. Are they not what you are referring to however?
And of course there was the Revell pulpwood car, a very popular item in its time that you still see at swap meets. For at least a while the market for plastic flatcars with bulkheads was well served.
http://hoseeker.net/revellinformation/Revell1958infopage05.jpg
Dave Nelson
I wasn't aware of Athearn 50' pulpwood cars, whether metal or plastic. I did have one of their plastic 40'ers, though, but it didn't look much like the pulpwood cars that I used to see around here. I found a couple more on the "used" table at a nearby hobbyshop, and decided to modify them a bit, removing the fishbelly underframes to allow the cars to ride lower, then cutting them in two at their mid-points and splicing-in a 10' section of plain .060" sheet styrene. The new sides are .040" sheet styrene, overlaid with .010" sheet to disguise the joints between the new material and the original fishbelly sidesills. The ribs are Evergreen .060" square strip material...
There's not much pulpwood around here, so the cars are used mostly for structural steel, pipe, or lumber.
Wayne